Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Scotticus]

... is pretty totes ridic.

Me and the lady went tonight because we were in the area on business. I got breakfast and she got a burger. We were both quite surprised... in that it actually tasted like diner food from the US. I know that will turn a lot of people off, but it was some good shit if that's what you're looking for.

Crispy bacon, real-deal breakfast sausage and the waffle tasted great (although it didn't look great). The burger actually tasted like a REAL burger - not a BK or McD or one of those half-assed burgers you get at 99.9% of the places here. The fries, hash browns and scrambled eggs were all good.

As far as the bad goes: the service was pretty shitty. Like 5 workers, only 2-3 tables of people and yet it still took forever for me to get a refill on our coke. The prices are a little high - but not as high as we expected them to be considering it's an "ethnic" restaurant in Itaewon. The food was as greasy as you'd expect an American diner to be. Depending on who you are, that can be a good or bad thing. When we were there, a Western guy was cooking (which I'm assuming is the reason why it all tasted authentic and didn't involve corn, potatoes or sweet pickles in any way).

[IamBabo]

um, sounds like we had different experiences. ate there, got food poisoning, never going back. my friend went there a couple weeks ago and got 2 soggy Eggos for 8,000 won. you can buy the box of 60 at Costco for like 17,000. service sucked too, same as you. all american food poisoning is more like it!

[crazy_arcade]

Yeah....considering how simple it is to make a killer breakfast....

unless I'm getting 10 free coffee refills while I finish half my book.....

I ain't buying it.

[Yaya]

[samd]

[crusher_of_heads]

Service sucks.

I'll walk down the street to the RMT for a good breakfast, with great service with the hockey game on instead.

However, burger is good, but I didn't get food poisoing, so count me lucky.

[brento1138]

It's a good greasy Sunday hangover cure. If you're looking for more than that, look elsewhere.

[jadarite]

[ChinaBoy]

I think the All American Diner was in JeongJa.. what's the name of that place?

[IamBabo]

The one in Jeongja is called Daily Kings Diner, and is so much better than All American ass explosion...

[prideofidaho]

Don't get me started. The service is horrendous.

Went there, waited an hour for breakfast (20 minutes for a coffee). They tried to give me a burger twice, and once my breakkie actually came...it was dis-gus-ting. I refused to pay and left, not after having to argue with the man about having to pay for a meal that was a) and hour late, and b) rancid. It's a breakfast meal...not rocket science. The man insisted I pay...and I only left after the woman shouted at him and told me I could leave and not pay.

I have a severe hate-on for that place, and I'll tell anyone who will listen.

Go there, only if you want to wait for a long time and get crap service.

[Scotticus]

It's really strange the range of opinions I'm seeing. The waffle I got didn't look great but was definitely home-made and tasted as such. I can say with 100% certainty it was NOT an Eggo waffle... and I've got a freezer full of Eggos that can back that up.

I don't know, maybe it depends on the cook? The guy last night was spot on with all the food.

[i]

I got meatloaf there last week. It was good, but it took about an hour to get it.

[sojourner1]

Why so slow for a diner meal? They must be moronic retards. Korean food never takes this long either; not even when it's a large full restaurant on a weekend. Of course, Korean food is mostly prepped ahead of time and easy to serve. It is easy to serve a fresh and hot burger with fries in 10 minutes without cooking it ahead of time. It's also doable to serve good brewed coffe in 2 minutes, providing it's morning when they should have a hot pot. It's also doable to serve a breakfast in 10 minutes. You just got to go where they have a heavy hittin cook on the grill with servers who can speak English and who understand the menu.

These typical serving times are assuming that the cook is not backed up with other orders. I just get so bored when waiting as there is usually nothing to do in a restaurant. I can tolerate 15 to 20 minutes, but anything over that I get antzy.

Where there many people when you had to wait an hour?

In Germany, I waited many times for 30 to 60 minutes in restaurants, usually only to receive poor, cold, apathic pathetic service that only had 1 or 2 couples or no one present at all! Europe is well known for slow crappy restaurant service, but I haven't seen slow service in Korea although crappy quality comes to mind often. You can get Germans to serve the best beer in 1 or 2 minutes, but never food unless it's a place near a military base that caters to Americans and then they liked using frozen premade shite instead of homemade from scratch. They make a lot of money off that big draw of hungry soldier with pockets full of money. In Korea, teachers are very comparable to the situation soldiers are in as we make about as much as they do, except we don't get free American food nor have PX shopping priviledges nor the MWR bowling alleys to go hang out with other Americans. This leaves English teachers fully living on the local economy, but the Koreans in the local economy do not make any effort to cater to foreign English teachers as satisfied customers. Even if they're around 500 to 1000 teachers in an area, the Koreans seem to not be interested in making money off them by filling their needs or wants through offering a product we'll buy. Every thing available resembling the West is not intended for the Westerner even though this happens every day; it's intended for Korean consumers so they don't happily cater to us. It seems to make them uncomfortable when I demand sales and service of any sort. No concept of trying to make money from me whatsoever which I find retarded as most countries have restaurants and business people trying me for my money and most of the time, this allows a good taste of home or useful English speaking services. But not in Korea. ????

I don't see why it's that crappy in Itaewon Seoul, because this is a US Army community where there are many guys trying to spend money on hot greasy American food. I guess Koreans just lack the skills, knowledge, and finesse to do international foods like that as the Germans were quit proficient at understanding how to do it. I like how those Germany ladies warmly say, "bitti-shen," when you say, "dankeshin." I've never gotten warm and friendly service in Korea, just cold depressed robots though I've had some very good food.
Of course, Americans are probably getting a lot more on base in Korea than they did in Germany since soldiers usually don't like Korea like the way they do Germany. I noticed most don't know how to behave in an international situation and either act jittery and tense or cold as ice like one of them robot women they're building in Japan and Korea. The people with skills are usually not working in restaurants.


Keep the restaurant reviews coming, becuase it sucks to get bad service when you've been waiitng many months to go eat something like that. Read Seoulstyle.com too, because it tells of places ran by foreigners which are most likely to give you the top notch service you're looking for. In my experiences of eating out, I got good sincere service from foreigner ran restaurants in Korea. There're only a handful of these in Korea.

[wylies99]

I met a young woman who loved the place, and when I went with her, the service was okay- not great- but everyone seemed to know her. The next time I went with some dudes, and the service was HORRIBLE. Stay away. The food isn't all that great, but the service is so bad, it seems like they treat you like you owe them money or you ran over their pet cat in the parking lot.